Shropshire Routes to Roots

3. Using trade directories

Computers

Because of the drawbacks of using any single Trade Directory to work out what transport routes were like, it is much better to combine the sources and do cross-checks between many different directories. Computers can help with this. The information from lots of different lists of carriers and coaches can be collected, then an entry can be searched for and checked against others.

Dr. Trevor G. Hill has kindly donated some of his research for his thesis 'From Packhorse to Railway: Changing transport systems from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries and their impact upon trade and industry in the Shropshire area.' to Routes to Roots.

For this research, entries from 101 trade directories were entered onto a spreadsheet. With the information on computer, it is easy to extract information from the directories.

Ellesmere to Shrewsbury in 1822

Open the 1822 list of coaches (In Excel Spreadsheet format. Opens in a new window). Find the coach 'Prince of Orange':

• The coach leaves Ellesmere for Shrewsbury at 10.00 am. The same coach leaves Ellesmere for Chester at 4.00pm
• It must have taken less than six hours to get from Ellesmere to Shrewsbury and back again. It is about 32 miles (52 kilometres) from Ellesmere to Shrewsbury and back so, assuming an hour is taken up with loading and resting the horses, the coach might have travelled at seven or eight miles an hour.
• How many other coach services left from Ellesmere to Shrewsbury in 1822?
• View answers (Opens in a new window).

Ellesmere to Shrewsbury in 1842

Open the 1842 list of coaches (In Excel Spreadsheet format. Opens in a new window). If you wanted to go from Ellesmere to Shrewsbury:

• How many coaches left from Ellesmere to Shrewsbury in 1842?
• What were their names and when did they leave?
• View answers (Opens in a new window).

By comparing these two pieces of information, we can tell that the coach service from Ellesmere to Shrewsbury was more or less the same across twenty years.

Ellesmere to Shrewsbury in 1856

Now look at the entry for Ellesmere from Kelly's Directory, 1856:

Extract from Kelly's Directory, 1856 [Shropshire Archive reference: C67]

• How many times a day did coaches [omnibuses] leave Ellesmere in this year?
• Where did they go to?
• Were there more or fewer trips done by coaches in 1856, compared to 1822?
• What other forms of transport were around in 1856?
• View answers (Opens in a new window).

The long view

Now examine the story for coaches going longer distances over the 34 years from 1822 to 1856. Look at the number of coaches leaving Whitchurch in 1822, 1842 and 1856. (Files in Excel Spreadsheet format. Open in a new window.)

• How many coach services ran from Whitchurch in 1822, 1842 and 1856?
• Over the period, were there more or fewer coaches serving distant parts of the country such as Manchester, Birmingham or Liverpool?
• Can you think of why this might be? The first entry for Whitchurch in 1856 gives a clue.
• View answers (Opens in a new window).

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